History Repeating Itself

Many years ago I had the misfortune to work for Devon Library Services. One day there was a kerfuffle in the Administrative Centre. When a book in Devon did not have an ISBN it was given a Devon version called the D Number. Plymstock library had asked for and been given more D numbers than it was ever likely to need.

Had the library service been based in Plymstock rather than Exeter the incident would have caused even more of a kerfuffle. The very mention of D numbers sends a shudder down the spine of every informed Plymstockian to this day.

The dreaded Plymstock D Number Runners first emerged in the early sixteenth century. At this point modern arabic numerals were being introduced to replace the old roman ones. Only the wealthiest people could afford the new numbers and their possession and distribution was a closely regulated state monopoly. The only numbers to be distributed outside this monopoly were the most highly prized of all. These were issued by the Roman Catholic Church and bore the letter D for Deus or God in front of them. Owning a D number with its papal connection was the ultimate status symbol and the Church took to selling them to its wealthier patrons when the practice of selling indulgencies was called into question. A few were always smuggled of course. Then King Henry the Eighth broke with Rome and dissolved the monasteries which sold the D numbers. The D number was subject to the same control as the other new numbers and its possession depended less on connections with the Church than with keeping the right side of a capricious government.

If people wanted to obtain D numbers they had to defy the state monopoly and smuggle them in from Catholic countries overseas. The important trading port of Plymstock had enough men with boats willing to illicitly supply this demand. The Plymstock D Number Runners became known throughout Europe for the fearless and vicious importation of forbidden numbers. They were violent and uncontrollable. Every so often some would be captured and hanged but for every one taken out of circulation another ten would rise in their place. Running became so common that it has been calculated that up to 80% of the income of Plymstock port in the seventeenth century came from the illegal importation of D numbers. Many of the runners became prosperous and built large houses in the town defiantly adorned with the letter D on the front gable. Some of these still stand even though their Ds have been removed by a court order of 1857.

After a while governments made themselves complicit in this practice in exchange for a share of the profits. The Queen Anne legs seen on Stuart furniture are actually two Ds joined face to face. The Runners were eventually destroyed not by government but by the people. After two centuries the demand for arabic numbers was so great that government could no longer control it. So many were smuggled into the U.K. that they became worthless and easily obtainable. If you wanted a D number you simply paid a local tradesman a small sum to affix a D to your existing numbers. The Roman Catholic Church did not want to see its precious numbers reduced to this level so stopped producing them. There was no longer any point in smuggling. By 1750 this once grand form of numerical piracy was no more. Plymstock would have to find another way to make its mark in the world.

Devon Library Services did not know what it was doing when it invented its own D numbers. Apparently the people of Plymstock still knew how important they were. History is yet to relate exactly what happened to these numbers. No one yet knows how many lives have been lost in the fruitless efforts of government to stop Plymstock people demonstrating their independence by whatever means come to hand.